3 And Vodafone Using CGNAT Causing Blocked Ports

I was Running 2 online SDR radios for some time and all of a sudden they couldn't be reachable from the internet.

I discovered I have a private IP on the modem which is obviously different from the one reported via whatsmyip.

This is most likely due to CGNAT but three seemingly have been using this for some time so why it had been working for me up until last week I do not know but this has far greater implications such as not being able to access home security systems from the internet or no online gaming for games consoles etc, the list goes on.

It's not possible to bypass without paying a fee for another tunnelling service.

It could have something to do with how poor 3 have got the last number of months even before covid.

I need an APN that gives a Public IP so if someone knows I would be greatful.

Three are no help and Vodafone are worse than useless, got to a call centre in India and it took me 40 mins to try explain what the issue was and what I wanted and I might as well have been talking to a brick.

Customer service just gets worse and worse.

Internet is getting worse especially for Country folk without the possibility of fixed line internet.

I do not want to try a wireless provider like imagine or others because I hear bad things and I do not want to be locked into a contract.

So if anyone is having issues with ports blocked and port forwarding doesn't work then log into the modem and if the WAN IP is 10.xx then you're screwed because this is a private ip and you need a public ip.

An APN for vodafone or 3 that gives a public ip would be great preferably Vodafone.

alan4cult

Three don't use CGNAT, only Vodafone afaik.
Gomo/Eir don't use it either so they give you a public IP.

Possibly Three are using in some instances but not for me anyway.

alan4cult

alan4cult wrote: »

Three don't use CGNAT, only Vodafone afaik.
Gomo/Eir don't use it either so they give you a public IP.

Possibly Three are using in some instances but not for me anyway.

Three do use CGNAT from what I have discovered, but I don't know how ports were open unless due to lack of IP and their ultra crap network they just implemented it in my area last week.

ka2

alan4cult wrote: »

Three don't use CGNAT, only Vodafone afaik.
Gomo/Eir don't use it either so they give you a public IP.

Possibly Three are using in some instances but not for me anyway.

From my experience, Three use CGNAT on their 3G network but not 4G. It's strange but I'd get a private IP if I set the modem to 3G only.

GoMo/Eir do use CGNAT, but they use the 100.64.0.0/10 shared address space so it's not immediately obvious.

ED E

Interesting idea Ka2.


4G: 10.203 subnet
3G: 10.216 subnet

So both are private for me. [Mobile sim, not MBB]

3ireland.ie (Three phone SIM)
3internet (Three data SIM, public IP address*)
3broadband.ie (Three data SIM, private IP address)
nbs.ie (former NBS data SIM, private IP address)
internet (business phone & former O2 phone SIMs)
open.internet (former O2 data SIMs, private IP address)
open.internet.public (former O2 data SIMs, public IP address*)

*Public IP address may need to be requested

That data comes from https://editorsean.com/


Three may have legacy zones that give publics and as upgrades happen you get NAT'd. Im in a contemporary area so would expect the latest deployment standards.

Well I definitely have a 10. address on the modem so they're definitely implementing CGNAT in this area and the same with Vodafone and it could be due to the diabolical slow down and constant disconnects that on the 3 network that it was implemented which would cut immediately any home server running, for me SDR Radios, others online gaming, security cameras and other services which would probably greatly increase the bandwidth available, sneaky scum.

It's sad what we have to endure in 2020, the internet is getting to the point it's not worth sh1t. At least for us Country folk and the only improvements they make are where there's already full coverage of high speed services, for instance, the ESB fibre are only in areas where there is already FTTH or FTTC I know they want higher return from investment but does it not seem logical that return could be lower in areas already well served by other high speed services than areas with absolutely no form of FTTH or FTTC ?

For instance, in my Mothers area she could get 70 Mbs on FTTC, then a couple of months later they ran Fibre up her road and ended it a few kms away leaving those beyond the fibre with nothing not even dsl , ridiculous.

Without warning bang, ports closed and nothing can be done without paying additional fees for other companies you shouldn't have to pay it's scandalous.

The E.U have been calling on the telecoms companies to end this practice but it has fallen on deaf ears, it hinders investigations from local authorities because if 100 People have the same ip then it make it very difficult to impossible to find the account holder.

ka2

Deleted User wrote: »

Well I definitely have a 10. address on the modem so they're definitely implementing CGNAT in this area and it could be due to the diabolical slow down and constant disconnects that it was implemented which would cut immediately any home server running, for me SDR Radios, others online gaming, security cameras which would probably greatly increase the bandwidth available, sneaky scum.

It's sad what we have to endure in 2020, the internet is getting to the point it's not worth sh1t. At least for us Country folk and the only improvements they make are where there's already full coverage of high speed services, for instance, the ESB fibre are only in areas where there is already FTTH or FTTC I know they want higher return from investment but does it not seem logical that return could be lower in areas already well served by other high speed services than areas with absolutely no form of FTTH or FTTC ?

For instance, in my Mothers area she could get 70 Mbs on FTTC, then a couple of months later they ran Fibre up her road and ended it a few kms away leaving those beyond the fibre with nothing not even dsl , ridiculous.

I know what you mean. I live just on the outskirts of Drogheda and can get FTTH from both SIRO and OpenEir whereas most of my immediate family live in rural areas and are stuck on 3G or 4G connections. I'm hoping the NBP delivers for them but it'll be a while away yet.

purifol0

I know its not ideal, but have you considered just running your own vpn server and using a dynamic dns service?

ka2

ka2 wrote: »

I know what you mean. I live just on the outskirts of Drogheda and can get FTTH from both SIRO and OpenEir whereas most of my immediate family live in rural areas and are stuck on 3G or 4G connections. I'm hoping the NBP delivers for them but it'll be a while away yet.

We don't even need Fibre, I'm not asking for such a service, a proper wireless service is all the country needs, 5G probably won't work due to the limited distance but it just might in the beginning because it will work on similar frequencies to 4G, and here's the funny bit, all those People objecting to 5G aren't aware that the 20+ Ghz frequencies they are saying is of concern isn't even licenced for 5G use meaning 5G in Ireland and most places will use similar frequencies to 4G, it's hilarious when I read all the anti 5G stories.

Little do the anti 5G crowd know that airport security scanners use 20+G frequencies and so many cars these days have radar cruise control up to 70 Ghz.

Radio waves emit non ionising radiation and at the distance from the mast the fighter the frequency it's harmless because it can't penetrate the skin at that little power.

Anyway, 5G on 20+ Ghz is years away.

A decent 4G service is all the country needs, a solid 50 Mbs at peak times is more than good enough. I don't need 1GB or 100 Mbs. I just need a good stable connection that doesn't need reboots several times a day as speed reaches 0 and ping 1000ms + and changing the modem to 3G is no solution.

I have changed over to Vodafone and can't test it out yet because I haven't received the unlock code for my old modem from 3. It can only be better. Hopefully.

Vodafones 4G service is supposed to be vastly better than 3 but seemingly 3 have bought far more 5G spectrum so 3's 5G service has the potential to be much better than Vodafones.

purifol0

purifol0 wrote: »

I know its not ideal, but have you considered just running your own vpn server and using a dynamic dns service?

Yes I already do but if the ports are blocked this won't work, I need to subscribe to a tunnelling service which might not even work on my SDR Radios and the VPN will still need access to the same ports and the SDRs don't have the ability to work with VPN.

The company that makes the SDRs is providing a reverse proxy service but so far it's not working which I think might be down to their servers.

smuggler.ie

Hmmm... since 2018 i have recorded some data re my connection on Three. IP's i have had at various dates on 4G:
Oct 2018 - 24 Apr 2020
178.167
92.251
31.200
80.233
10.202 (Jan2019, one day only. no record, but could be APN change)
10.216 (Apr2019, one day only. no record, but could be APN change)
30.200

Since 25 Apr 2020
10.219
10.205
10.197
10.202
10.198 today

smuggler.ie

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Hmmm... since 2018 i have recorded some data re my connection on Three. IP's i have had at various dates on 4G:
Oct 2018 - 24 Apr 2020
178.167
92.251
31.200
80.233
10.202 (Jan2019, one day only. no record, but could be APN change)
10.216 (Apr2019, one day only. no record, but could be APN change)
30.200

Since 25 Apr 2020
10.219
10.205
10.197
10.202
10.198 today

There are days my SDRs went offline and might not have came online again for a day or 2 and I never thought to think of checking the ip when it went offline.

They may have fully implemented CGNAT now.

smuggler.ie

Deleted User wrote: »

There are days my SDRs went offline and might not have came online again for a day or 2 and I never thought to think of checking the ip when it went offline.

They may have fully implemented CGNAT now.

Just out of curiosity i changed APN:
was set 3ireland.ie = 10.198
now set 3internet = 31.200

purifol0

Im on a ten network on Three's 4G network and I'm going to give this a shot later tonight, but for the mean time an easy solution is to just use Teamviewer.

smuggler.ie

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Just out of curiosity i changed APN:
was set 3ireland.ie = 10.198
now set 3internet = 31.200

Strange. I'm sure they have APN that is free from this nonsense of blocking ports.

I wonder if I brought it up with my Local TD ? this has implications for rural Ireland. The only providers blocking ports is unacceptable.

I haven't tried Eir yet but I'm assuming the issue is the same as ip4 addresses has ran out, they were aware of this years ago.

When I called 3 up yesterday they hadn't a clue what I was talking about, yes this was technical support.

When I was talking to Vodafone Technical support in India I think it was I spent 40 mins trying to explain and then waiting for him to come back to me and repeat myself over and over then at the end he says, "so you want to top up your pre pay account is that correct?" At that point I nearly exploded, thanked him for his time and ended the call.

purifol0

purifol0 wrote: »

Im on a ten network on Three's 4G network and I'm going to give this a shot later tonight, but for the mean time an easy solution is to just use Teamviewer.

Can't use team viewer, even if it would run on the old Beaglebone the SDR allows 4 connections which allow separate control of the SDR Receiver so for instance someone could be listening to a Amateur radio Operator at 3.750 Khz, another listening to BBC R4 on Long wave and someone else decoding weather charts and someone else decoding God knows what on Shortwave.

Team viewer is not possible.

purifol0

Its not that they block ports, its that traffic sent to a public IP wont go to a private IP (your IP) unless specifically set that way on their router. Its not an issue if you get assigned a public IP - which is what happened with every internet connection in the past. You buy an internet connection = you buy 1 public IP address. But that isn't the case with mobile internet now, you still get a public IP on a wired connection though.

I might be able to figure something out later but Teamviewer or an equivalent can be used.

As for ISPs not giving us public IP's - unless there's legislation that isn't going to change, and it is a big deal for rural Ireland.

purifol0

I'd love to know your full setup. If your only using a low power arm device, or do you have a old laptop or desktop handy to connect via console/ssh/whatever to the device?

ka2

smuggler.ie wrote: »

Just out of curiosity i changed APN:
was set 3ireland.ie = 10.198
now set 3internet = 31.200

Forgot to say that. I was using the 3internet APN.

purifol0

purifol0 wrote: »

I'd love to know your full setup. If your only using a low power arm device, or do you have a old laptop or desktop handy to connect via console/ssh/whatever to the device?

http://www.kiwisdr.com/

http://www.kiwisdr.com/ks/using_Kiwi.html

That link should explain a lot.

Here's a link to a map where you can find and connect to actual SDRs.

http://rx.linkfanel.net/

purifol0

purifol0 wrote: »

Its not that they block ports, its that traffic sent to a public IP wont go to a private IP (your IP) unless specifically set that way on their router. Its not an issue if you get assigned a public IP - which is what happened with every internet connection in the past. You buy an internet connection = you buy 1 public IP address. But that isn't the case with mobile internet now, you still get a public IP on a wired connection though.

I might be able to figure something out later but Teamviewer or an equivalent can be used.

As for ISPs not giving us public IP's - unless there's legislation that isn't going to change, and it is a big deal for rural Ireland.

Yes I know what you're saying but really though it's the same thing as far as I'm concerned as it prevents opening ports and it probably is a bonus to the telecoms companies that this will eliminate a lot of unwanted traffic freeing up bandwidth.,

westyIrl

Mad_Lad, might be a good read for you here in this regard: https://editorsean.com/articles/large-4g-plans-home-broadband-ireland/

For those that need a public IP address such as for port forwarding, change the router’s APN to “3internet”. The router may need to be rebooted for the public IP address to be assigned. If the IP address shown on the router’s status page starts with ’10.x.x.x’ or ‘100.x.x.x’, then it is a private IP address and port forwarding will unlikely work. Occasionally the router may get assigned a private IP address even with the 3internet APN. Should this happen, restart the router and it will usually pick up a public IP address again.

Also, I recall reading on the three community discussion (since closed) that if you were on an actual broadband sim only plan with three, (I know it's €10 more p/m for 30 day contract) they would assign you a public IP upon request. They wouldn't do this for the €20 AYCE plan however. It might be worth checking out if it's worth the extra cost for you.

However, I'm not sure if either of the above is a solution if Three have made any breaking changes recently.

On my setup (€20 mobile sim deal) default APN gives 10. address on both 3G/4G while 3internet gives 10. on 3G and a 92.251. address on 4G but I'm on a remote tower.

Jim

westyIrl

westyIrl wrote: »

Mad_Lad, might be a good read for you here in this regard: https://editorsean.com/articles/large-4g-plans-home-broadband-ireland/


Also, I recall reading on the three community discussion (since closed) that if you were on an actual broadband sim only plan with three, (I know it's €10 more p/m for 30 day contract) they would assign you a public IP upon request. They wouldn't do this for the €20 AYCE plan however. It might be worth checking out if it's worth the extra cost for you.

However, I'm not sure if either of the above is a solution if Three have made any breaking changes recently.

On my setup (€20 mobile sim deal) default APN gives 10. address on both 3G/4G while 3internet gives 10. on 3G and a 92.251. address on 4G but I'm on a remote tower.

Jim

Thanks, for that.

I did try the apn as suggested before and it didn't work and when I called them up several times they couldn't assist me because they didn't know what the problem was even when I explained Public ip and after being put on hold and a couple of hrs in total waiting, the last time they put me on hold I just hug up the phone. Shocking customer support or lack of. Surprised to see Vodafone do not have 4G+ here, three did but it was crap lol.

Anyway, it turns out that the guy from Kiwi SDr made a mistake setting up my account and the reverse proxy to my sdr is now working. And I will get my other one back up in a couple of days hopefully.

Check it out here, it might take a bit to get used to tuning and having the correct mode, AM, LSB,USB, DRM. You can check out some digital radio on Shortwave too if any stations are transmitting, decode weather charts and listen to Amateur radio operators or even Air traffic on Shortwave, decode digital comms such as PSK31, Olivia, and JS8 call among others but need 3rd party software for that.

You can send emails and messages on Shortwave too ! :-)

http://emeraldsdr.proxy.kiwisdr.com:8073/